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Pride and Prejudice

Growing up in Germany, I was raised to be unpatriotic. But in multicultural New York City, where everyone loves a parade, ethnic celebration can also carry undercurrents of hatred.

By Sabine Heinlein|July 13, 2011 7:00 AM|19comments
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Steuben Parade, 2010. (Brian Lin/Flickr)

Two days after my husband and I moved to Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, in 2008, an old German man whom I will call Otto introduced himself. He was dressed in shorts, knee-highs, and sandals, his hair gray and thinning. “Hello,” he said as I sat on my stoop drinking beer. “I live in the house with the flowers.”

Everybody has flowers in their front yard in Sunnyside Gardens, but Otto’s flower arrangements stand out: His garden’s neat choreography rivals that of a North Korean mass performance. Trying to reach the ultimate perfection, Otto, in his mid-70s, is always sweeping, digging, raking, pruning, and polishing things. On hot summer nights he sits on his stoop listening to German folk music on an old cassette recorder, while his Puerto Rican wife, whom I’ll call Maria, watches baseball games in the living room.

Otto never misses an opportunity to tell me how much he aches for Germany. Born and raised in the western state of Nordrhein-Westfalen during the Third Reich, Otto immigrated to the United States in the 1950s because his company relocated. He thought he’d eventually go back, but he met Maria and the couple married. In 1982, they bought a house in Queens.

Our block is perhaps the most diverse one in the world. I am a Protestant born and raised in Germany; my husband is Catholic, from Mexico. We met in 2004, in New York City, and married in 2006. Our neighbors are from Pakistan, India, Great Britain, Peru, Ecuador, Australia, China, Turkey, and Ireland. We are white, pink, beige, brown, and black. Our neighbors are Protestants, Jews, Catholics, atheists, agnostics, and Muslims. Most recently, an Orthodox rabbi with his wife and four children moved from Israel to a house on our block to take the pulpit at the Young Israel of Sunnyside congregation, which had been without a rabbi for several years. The synagogue celebrated his arrival with a little parade down our block. Neighbors of all shades and creeds sat on their stoops in the sun; some took pictures and waved at the float that carried the rabbi’s neatly dressed children. In Sunnyside Gardens my husband and I felt at home for the first time in decades. It seemed like a safe and welcoming place.

***

Aside from our nationality, Otto and I have little in common. We both married Latinos, as he once noted, but in addition to an age gap of nearly four decades, we have different tastes in music, clothes, literature, and garden decor. Until recently, Otto left German tabloid magazines on my front porch for me to read, and not wanting to hurt his feelings, I never told him that they went right into the recycling bin. But despite our differences, when Otto asked me to check in on Maria while he traveled to Germany for a trip, I agreed. This may be his last trip home, he said.

Taking care of Maria was far more demanding than I had imagined. I was supposed to drop by once a day and make sure that Maria hadn’t suddenly fallen ill or down the stairs.

“My head is spinning,” she told me on the first morning. “It feels like I have one head on top of the other.” I looked at Maria’s head. I saw nothing wrong. I offered to take her to the doctor, but Maria waved off my offer. “I’ve felt like this for years,” she said.

The next day Maria complained about back pain. “Damn Otto!” she said. “He screwed up my back.” When I asked what happened, she said, “He had a heart attack and fell on top of me.”

Each day Maria complained about something else. She hated hospitals because of the black nurses, and Jews because her sister was married to an allegedly lazy one. She hated the envelope I bought for the “Home Sweet Home” calendar she wanted to send to her sister (presumably the one who married the “lazy Jew”). Maria also hated the milk and the potatoes her Puerto Rican neighbor got her. She even hated Sunnyside. (“Too many trees,” she said.) I was sure that Maria hated me too.

The last few days of Otto’s absence, Maria played possum. I rang the bell but no one opened. Just to make sure everything was OK, I walked past her house at night to check whether the lights came on. They did.

When Otto returned from his vacation, he stopped by my house. “I’m sorry about my wife,” he said. “I think she’s faking it.” There was no way of denying that something was wrong with Maria, so I didn’t.

But what was wrong with Otto that he would be married to Maria? He didn’t strike me as a hater. He, too, had mentioned his lazy Jewish brother-in-law, but added apologetically, “You know there are good Jews and bad Jews.” At least he’s trying to make a distinction, I thought. I decided to let it slide.

***

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  • Jack

    This is an excellent article. Much appreciated.

    One explanation is that psychologically it is easy…to project one’s Jungian “Shadow” onto the unknown.

    Learning about others’ ways helps dispel that.

    New York…thanks for allowing me to be exposed and educated and delighted by the many diverse fellow folks with whom I share this planet.

  • Paul Golin

    Beautifully written piece, thank you for this. I’m pretty sure that’s the first Nina Hagen reference in Tablet; hope there will be more.

  • ISD

    Good.for you for speaking up. Many people wouldn’t.

  • Roy

    As Nina Hagen sang:

    “New York City is a place so nice
    Everybody says it so they had to name it twice
    New York my happy love’s you, I love you very much
    I could not live without you, so let’s always keep in touch
    New York City has the fanciest rule
    When you want to live in this town you just have to be a fool”

    This was a fun read, and certainly captures the reason a lot us are passionate about the City. So far as the prejudice is concerned, it’s hardly unique to Germany, a country that has really been a model in making an effort at tempering the darker elements of nationalism. But you’ll find bigotry in every community, even those living side by side in Queens. I think it’s an element of human nature, and there’s just no realistic prospect of eliminating it altogether. There’s something to be said for at least keeping it private.

    By the way, I believe the Van Bramers trace their lineage back to the early Dutch settlers of Queens, so Jimmy Van Bramer is actually a local aristocrat. Also, Dr. Ruth used to be B-list; “It was the pictures that got small.”

  • Roy

    Perhaps not coincidentally, the first statement advocating religious pluralism in the European colonies was the Flushing Remonstrance. It’s a pretty remarkable text, given the time and place:

    http://www.nyym.org/flushing/remons.html

  • Robert Ayers

    Absolutely brilliant, deeply moving piece. I shall share it with Merrill, and with our daughter Samantha who is in Berlin.

  • rebbetex

    A moving article we all ought to think about very carefully. Beneath the accepting veneer of our society are there are so many of these people, who harbor deep hatreds that defy logic. I feel the only way to get past this, if we ever can, is downplay the group pride, and begin to believe that each person is an individual.

    American society seems to have moved further from that concept in recent decades, feeling that groups are entitled to Supreme Court seats, college admissions, public contracts…a highly simplistic approach that is out of synch with reality. Persons deserve the rewards of socity not because of what group they are born into or become a member of, but on an individual person, because aa a human being they are right person for that role. We should be able to accept a Supreme Court that is all black, or all Jewish, or all gay, or all women, with ease, if all those on the bench are fine jurists, who think fairly and do credit to that role, who are compassionate human being who understand that the law involves how humans relate to one another and to the state.

    Within each of these supposed groups is a broad array of people, many of whom share nothing
    but one label with each other. There are many Jews with whom I share nothing in common..and yet we talk of the Jewish vote, and we have
    a self appointed froup of apokespeople for us a Jews who are the heads of major Jewish organizations who act as if they speak for all of us.

    How to reconcile a strong Jewish identity, with a strong sense each of ourselves as individuals takes a bit of some doing. But surely every member of any group must be the unique person he is, first and foremost.

  • Rocky

    Several years ago, I remember reading about a planned gay pride parade in Jerusalem. It was the only thing that the three major religious groups in the city (Haredi, Muslims and Orthodox Christians) could agree on. They didn’t like it and they wanted it stopped. The parade was cancelled. Otto and the Haredi have little in common. But when it comes to gay parades, they sing from the same prayer book. If Congress cannot resolve the debt limit crisis, we will see how tolerant the American public is towards Jews. My suspicion is that US aid to Israel is on life support. If I were a 25 year old Haredi, I’d be looking for a full time job. Uncle Sugar is broke.

  • Nachum

    Awww, you all stood up for the gays! Aren’t you special!

  • perot

    Finally!

    A German that I could like.

  • http://www.kevinkolack.com Eclectic Actor

    Good piece of writing, Sabine! Glad you’re my neighbor.

  • Leigh

    Thank you, Sabine! This is a great article. Your attitude shows a commitment to universal humanism above nationalism.

  • Maria

    It’s ironic that many people here praising her humanism – for which she should be praised – espouse deeply nationalistic, bigoted attitudes in the I/P conflict. It’s a schizoid mentality, convenient humanism but only when it comes to other people, never yourself.

    I’d prefer a straight humanist like Susan anyday over the many hypocrites here.

  • Michael

    What else is she going to say here, something that might dry up her grants? “Sabine Heinlein, a recipient of fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo, lives in New York City”
    Yea gays and multi-culturism, I’m a ‘reformed German’. Otto bad.

  • German

    No matter how you spin this story, we Germans don’t come out well.
    Let me explain:

    First, we have the author. There’s something strange about her.
    Her commitment against any kinds of racism is laudable. But in her story, she appears to have a fixation with her people. One might even call it an obsession.

    Germany when she grew up, in the post-1960s era, was in many ways a great nation compared to much of the rest of the world. One has to relate the country at that time to other contemporary nations.

    There was a fierce thrust against any kind of racism in public life, as she well observes, and there was relative enonomic and social justice, again, compared to much of the rest of the world.

    Yet, the author of this piece appears to hold a strange grudge against her people and former nation. She grew up in this context, yet admits that only once she escaped Germany did she ‘finally feel at home’.

    When the parade started, and the black NYPD officer casually complimented the German parade’s respect, order and restraint, she felt uneasy and even uncomfortable when he followed up that she must be ‘proud as a German’.

    So a relaxed, calm black cop gives a casual compliment to her as a German and she freaks out?

  • German

    Part 2:

    Again, remember the context of when she grew up in Germany.
    Pretend for a moment that all the neighbours of Israel, many of whom would like to see it wiped out, were exchanged for civilized, peaceful nations.

    Now pretend, too, that Israel has been enjoying genuine peace with it’s neighbours for over 50 years. And now picture an Israeli Jew freaking out when a non-Jew gives a casual, low-key compliment which has it’s place, given the (fantastic) context that this Israeli Jew grew up in. Why would that Israeli Jew be so ashamed of being Jewish, given the peaceful context of her upbringing? This is how the author comes across to a German audience.

    Sabine, the author, then follows up with successive character assassinations of her own mother’s childhood memories of Nüremberg. One should do well to remember that a woman her age at that time longed for the camps, the toghership and the adventure. Hitler didn’t speak about exterminations or war then, he only spoke of national unity instead of the chaos that had preceded him, and he actually delivered on that in the early years(a key to understand why people followed him, which is a fact many people forget when looking back)

  • German

    Part 3:

    It was natural for many Germans to go to different mass events, because they had boring, trivial lives. Yet she can’t even let her own mother go, a final stab with the hatchet has to be made even on her very own deathbed.

    ————————————————————

    Nazism lasted for 13 years. The German people have existed for well over a thousand. We have a long, rich and very varied history.

    Make no mistake, if I would be forced; I would take her side versus Otto’s, but her issues with her heritage are deep – and neurotic – as well as without any grounds in any real, deep knowledge of German history. An outsider’s ignorance can be forgiven for this, someone with her background has no such excuse, even though I know self-hating Germans may be popular among some crowds(just as self-hating Jews are).

    As for Otto: why would he feel the need to boo gays or mexicans? I feel no sympathy towards him. There doesn’t seem to be more to comment since he doesn’t appear to be a nuaced character(or at least that’s how the author portrays him, rightly or wrongly)

    In both cases, as I said in the beginning, Germans don’t come out well.
    It’s an embarrasing article for us Germans. One bigot and one obsessed with self-hatred.

  • Brian

    Brilliant article. As a gay, Jew by choice who studied German, this hits home on so many levels. Based on the discussions I had with young West Germans in the 1980s and 1990s, I think the author accurately portrayed the attitude of many Germans of the time. Patriotism was definitely not encouraged. I never saw Germans waving the German flag nor discussing pride in one’s country. From my perspective West Germans took more pride in being part of the European Union. One German friend told me that she considered herself European first and then German. This unease with patriotism actually helped me as I had always been ambiguous (and still am) with American patriotism

    I don’t think the author is a self-hating German. She’s only retelling her experiences and thoughts and critically examines the tribalism that we all are a part of.

  • Lynne T

    In writing this piece, he author appears to have overlooked something that I would have thought relevant about the choice of Ruth Westheimer to lead the parade:

    Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel in Wiesenfeld (Karlstadt), Germany, the only child of Orthodox Jews, Julius Siegel and Irma Siegel née Hanauer. In January 1939 she was sent to Switzerland by her mother and grandmother after her father was taken by the Nazis.[2][3][4] There she came of age in an orphanage, and stopped receiving her parents’ letters in September 1941. In 1945, Westheimer learned that her parents had been murdered in the Holocaust, possibly at the Auschwitz concentration camp.[3][4]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Westheimer

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Pride and Prejudice

Growing up in Germany, I was raised to be unpatriotic. But in multicultural New York City, where everyone loves a parade, ethnic celebration can also carry undercurrents of hatred.